Call for Ideas for Future
Public Imaging Surveys
(February 2002)

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Submitted Proposals

A total of 20 Proposals have been submitted to the Working Group for Surveys.

Calls for Ideas

Following the recommendations of the STC and OPC for the involvement of the community in the definition of public surveys, ESO is issuing this third annual CALL FOR IDEAS for future Public Imaging Surveys meant to provide the ESO community with survey products in support of the VLT science and obtained with the instrumentation available at ESO Observatories. Suggestions will be welcomed concerning any of the following observing periods:

Short Term, i.e. Period 70 - 71 (October 2002-September 2003) prior of the VST/OmegaCam coming into operation.
Medium Term, i.e. from VST on (currently expected to start in P72, October 2003-March 2004).
Long Term, i.e. proposals to complement the WFCAM/UKIDSS surveys that will be made available to the whole ESO community at the same time as to the UK community (see www.ukidss.org ).

The suggestions from the community will be evaluated by the Working Group for Surveys (WGS), which will take responsibility for elaborating from them a proposal to be submitted to OPC for P70 and following observing periods. Suggestions for SHORT TERM surveys are most urgently needed, however, any consideration or suggestion concerning the medium and long term phases will be carefully taken into account by the WGS, as to design the short term survey(s) in the frame of a broader perspective.

Scientists in the community are invited to visit the EIS home page to review the data sets already available and the current status of the ongoing surveys as of January 2002: The Deep Public Survey (DPS) and the Pre-FLAMES Survey (PFS). In addition, the DPS programme has been allocated 30 hours at WFI and 11 nights of SOFI at the NTT in P69. For more details browse the list of proposals submitted to the OPC.
No further time for the Pre-FLAMES survey is currently allocated. Comments and suggestions on the continuation of the DPS will be welcome by the WGS which will preliminarily assess the status of the survey discuss its possible completion in future periods.

Aware of the current status of ESO Public Surveys, scientists are invited to send their suggestions for future surveys to both the chairman of the WGS (Joachim Krautter, J.Krautter@lsw.uni-heidelberg.de) and to the EIS address (eisadm@eso.org). In addition, direct contacts with members of the WGS are encouraged.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: FEBRUARY 25, 2002 at 16:00 (CET)

No special form is required. Proposers are invited to take into account that the WGS is using the following criteria in the selection of the surveys to propose to the OPC as "public surveys":

Public surveys should be aimed at boosting the scientific outcome of the VLT and its instrumentation.
In this general framework, the necessity is particularly urgent for an adequate number of scientifically valuable targets for the new instruments coming on line later this year (NAOS-CONICA, VIMOS, FLAMES), with further emphasis on high-multiplex instruments (FORS, VIMOS, FLAMES).
Public surveys should consist of observations not likely to be covered by ``private'' proposals.
Public surveys should also have a broad scientific goal, provide data that could be fruitfully used by astronomers working in different astronomical areas, e.g. solar system, stellar populations, observational cosmology, etc., and should be easily complemented by `private' proposals aimed at more specific scientific goals. As a consequence, in general public surveys should concentrate on broad band imaging, leaving e.g. narrow band follow up or second epoch observations to `private' proposals.
Complementing publicly available databases (other ranges of the EM spectrum, data from space observatories, etc.) should have high priority for public surveys.
Submission of proposals aimed at complementing databases that are not accessible to the whole ESO community is not encouraged.

The current policy for public data projects (EIS, GOODS, Science Verification of VLT Instruments, see ESO web page for links) dictates that the raw and calibration data will enter the ESO public domain *immediately* after passing "quality control", while reduced and more advanced products will be made public within few months. In particular this will apply to public surveys.

The proposal will include a description of the survey products, the distribution policy, and schedule. Both the introduction of service observing at the 2.2m telescope and the considerable progress made in the development of the EIS pipeline software will enable a timely distribution of the survey products starting in the spring of 2003.

By March 10, 2002 proposers will be notified by the Chair of the WGS whether or not their "idea" is going to be incorporated in a "public survey proposal" to be submitted to the OPC by the WGS. This should allow them sufficient time to submit a regular proposal if necessary.


Send comments to `<eisadm@eso.org>` Last update: Feb 1, 2001

Call for Ideas for Future Public Imaging Surveys (February 2002)

Call for Ideas for Future
Public Imaging Surveys
(February 2002)